This invention relates to nestable compartmentalized trays made of a thin sheet material and having a plurality of downwardly narrowing cup-shaped depressions. Two side-by-side extending side walls, one belonging to one depression and the other belonging to an adjoining depression, converge upwardly and terminate in a common upper connecting edge. Trays of this structure may be nested in one another to form a tray stack.
Compartmentalized trays of the aforenoted type are often made of a stampable shape-retaining sheet made of a synthetic material which may be metallized. Trays of this type serve, in package making, for receiving goods, such as chocolate candies, cookies, mechanical parts, pharmaceutical products, etc., and are shipped to the manufacturer generally in stacks. As a first step, the stacked, nested compartmentalized trays, before charging them with goods, have to be separated ("de-nested") which may be performed by a special apparatus such as described, for example, in German Patent No. 1,586,152 or U.S. Pat. No. 3,401,831. In such operation the force which sometimes develops and with which the nested trays "stick" together, presents certain difficulties in that it resists separation. Such forces generally appear between the engaging sloping side walls of the depressions of two immediately superposed, nested trays.
In order to prevent the appearance of such forces which hinder the separation of the nested compartmentalized trays, it has already been proposed to provide, at preselected locations of the trays, for example along their edges, spacer members such as lugs or bosses which form an integral part of the tray and which are staggered with respect to one another from tray to tray within the stack. This mode of insuring appropriate distances between trays, however, is not always a satisfactory solution. Thus, for example, in packages which are destined to reach directly a final consumer, the external appearance has a significant role. Thus, features like the aforenoted integral spacer members may be considered as aesthetically disturbing and hence undesirable, even though, from a purely technological point of view, they may be considered as advantageous.